Dead Men Tell No Tales
by psycho pixie
Summary: Sousuke is declared dead after his body is discovered. But amid grief and confusion, Gauron would like the Scooby gang to know it wasn't him - therefore, it didn't happen. SG slash. You know the drill.
1. Chapter 1

A vein in Melissa Mao's head throbbed as she sat in Kaname's apartment, trying to break the news that she herself hadn't wanted to hear in the first place. Had dreaded, actually – five months of nothing, when nobody could find Sousuke dead or alive, when he could have been anywhere in the world. She had actually hoped that he'd taken advantage of his own disappearance and simply… disappeared. Started a new life somewhere else, far away from Japan and Mithril and the military. He had been so at home in desert surroundings that she thought he might have been in Arizona while everyone else was looking for him.

But he hadn't done that. He had gone too deep undercover, trying to wedge himself into North Korea without being suspected – it was a long-term assignment. He'd actually _wanted _it. And things had gone smoothly for the first few weeks, until his transmissions simply stopped. No one knew why – nothing had come out about a spy being discovered, and aside from the fact that Sousuke had completely disappeared, nothing else in the world was different.

It seemed to Melissa that _something _should have happened: misfired rockets, an uprising squashed, even a suspicious break-in somewhere to give them something to go on. But no, Sousuke was dead and there was no reason for it. Only eight people really cared what happened to the infamous little Japanese sand rat, but the ripples faded quickly after them.

"So that's it, then," Kaname said numbly, eyes on her shoes. "I guess – they all said his chances weren't good, so we should have seen this coming, but… it's official now." She swallowed. "Kurz told me after the first month that I shouldn't get my hopes up, you know, but I thought I could just say later that I was the only one who knew he'd be all right. Thought I'd rub his nose in it, you know?"

"I know," she sighed miserably. "I know. They… I mean, the coroner says he died quickly. Whatever happened, he wasn't in pain, and there's no sign of pre-mortem trauma."

The other girl didn't seem to register the morbid comfort. "Quick. That's good for him, I guess. I didn't –" And here, a quick swipe at her eyes. "Never mind. I'm sick of crying."

"It's okay to cry, if you want," she said uncomfortably – even for Sousuke, Melissa wasn't about to take on a weepy teenager willingly. No way. But it had to be all right to cry now – she had told herself every night before this that she would cry when his body was found, and not until then. Until then, he might be alive somewhere and in no need of anyone's tears.

Not so anymore. Eventually it would be her turn to cry.

"It's okay, but I'm tired of it," Kaname gritted, stamping on an urge to simply scream. "I've cried myself to sleep every night for five months now. I can't do it anymore."

An awkward silence stretched between them. "If you need anything…" she began uncomfortably. "You know that Kurz and I will be here."

Kaname nodded and sniffed quickly, teeth sinking into her bottom lip. "Thanks. Is Kurz okay?"

"He's… well, he's having a hard time with it," she admitted quietly. "We all are. He was the one who got the call from Mithril's forensic lab in Hawaii, and Kalinin told everyone else – he just wasn't expecting it. The rest of us got a little bit of a buffer. Anyways, the captain… we're having a memorial service on the submarine tomorrow. If you'd like to come back with me – I think you should be there," she said firmly, control returning to her. "We've been in the dark too long – I think it will be good for everyone to finally get some closure."

The other girl nodded and bit her lip further, blood blossoming quickly. "I'd like that."

The silence that followed was not awkward.

Not many outsiders could look out upon the sprawling deserts of Jordan and marvel at how lovely it was; for the man sitting in a parked Volkswagen Thing peering past two camels with a pair of high-resolution binoculars, it was as beautiful as any other arid, dry corner of hell. He waved a rolled-up newspaper at a persistent fly, but when he caught sight of the silly little red fez bobbing through the crowd, the fly was forgotten, and he began rifling through his bag for a silencer. God bless tourist shops, and that stupid fucking hat.

The binoculars wavered in his hand when a pair of icy blue eyes turned and seemed to look right through those fancy lenses, right at him. And the hat still looked stupid.

_I hate it when they see me coming_, he thought darkly, tossing the binoculars aside and assembling the rifle quickly. Didn't matter; the little British shit was dead meat whether he had time to get right with God or not.

Although – said British shit couldn't have possibly known he was marked for death. Marked at five million big ones, no less. An innocuous, if well-paying, hit.

He didn't bat an eyelash when the boy came walking up to his vehicle, one of the local street punks looking to make a buck or two. "I told you not to disturb me while I'm working," he said without actually looking at the child. "Was there some part of that you failed to understand?"

"Message for you, sir," the kid shot back, chin held high. "From Moscow."

Ah. He _had _left the boy with strict instructions to bring him anything from Moscow. "So get to it."

"They say they have news of the Mithril operative you've been keeping under surveillance," he delivered, proud of himself. "His remains have been positively identified after being discovered with the wreckage of a very large boat off the shore of North Korea. They know nothing else of it."

The gun lowered as the message unfolded. "Where did they hear that?"

"Monitoring Mithril's emergency channel."

He narrowed his eyes and picked up the gun again, aiming and shooting at the bobbing red fez with not-so-deadly accuracy. The hat shot off into the air as the bullet connected, and the wearer bolted away unhurt.

"Consider yourself warned," he growled, and then turned back to the boy. "They're wrong, so you know. He's not dead. If Moscow makes contact again, tell them it's not possible. Mithril might suspect we're listening to them."

"Will you not tell them yourself, sir?" The boy shifted on his feet.

"No, I won't."

"Where will I tell them you are?"

He was offered a chilling smile. "You won't tell them anything. I've got some personal business I'll be attending to; when I want to contact them, I'll do it."

The kid looked dejected, well aware that his salary was leaving as well. "Why, sir?"

"Because," Gauron said tightly, turning on his Volkswagen Thing and lighting his first cigarette of the day. "Anyone who believes Kashim is dead obviously hasn't met either of us."

The service proved to be one of the most miserable of Kaname's young life. As she went to a public high school, several students over the years had died for one reason or another. None of them had been real friends of hers, but the memorial services were both painful and drawn out.

This made all the rest look like picnics.

Aside from Tessa, it was a clearly military crowd in attendance, and most eyes in the room were dry. Kurz barely even saw her walk in the door, but it was only because his eyes were cloudy and distant. She sought him out quickly, more afraid of enduring this alone than disturbing him.

"Hi," she said softly, laying a hand on his arm.

He seemed to hardly register her presence. "He would have hated all this," he told her tightly. "He couldn't stand being the center of attention."

Kaname chose not to argue with him; she suspected that Kurz was the one who hated it more. Sousuke couldn't have cared less. "I hope it's not showy," she agreed. "It wouldn't be right."

"You know," he said emptily, "we still don't know why. His cover wasn't blown, no one saw anything out of the ordinary. It's so fucking hard to get any sort of info out of North Korea, no one will tell us _anything_ –" He blew out a noisy breath. "I want to know why. I want to know if there was any way of stopping it, anything leading up to it." His jaw tightened. "I want to know if anyone benefited from it. I want to know if anyone had any clue. I want a piece of everyone involved."

She didn't know what kind of piece Kurz was after, but she wouldn't have minded one herself. It seemed a poor end to her long vigil.

She supposed it was normal for a ship full of hard-core militants to keep composure during a funeral. Tessa cried a little noisily a few times, and Melissa was nowhere to be seen, but beyond that it was so stiff and formal that she thought she might keel over. It was also a little strange to be seated behind the weepy Tessa and the stoic Kalinin, who did not bat an eyelash the entire time. In truth, he looked as far away as Kurz did.

Kaname herself felt a thousand miles away as well – something about the severity and finality of the service just seemed to make it more unreal than it already was. She hadn't known there were so many nice things to say about Sousuke, but they were nice things that she'd never heard him say one thing about: he was the only AS pilot to come to a draw with Kalinin (during the Lieutenant Commander's tenure as flight instructor), he'd survived five weeks alone in a South American jungle after a mission gone awry… a slew of things that were fascinating stories, none of which he'd ever told her about.

Kalinin himself did not get up and speak, which surprised her. She didn't actually know anyone involved with the ceremony outside of Tessa. The ones who had actually fought beside Sousuke remained seated and stunned, like Kurz and Kaname, as though they were waiting for him to walk in and end this strange procession. He never did.

It was in the hallway that Kaname saw the man for the first time –Kurz had wandered off to smoke a cigarette in the emergency stairway, and she still hadn't seen Mao that day. All the other faces on the submarine were strangers, so when she actually spotted someone familiar, it took a moment for her to comprehend _who _she had seen.

He didn't see her, which was good – only a handful of people on the sub would be able to place his face, and if he knew he'd just passed one of them… she might not have come out on top this time.

The very fact that she saw him at that exact moment chilled her, and she wondered if it were one of those Whispered things that happened sometimes. Because for a long time as she'd roamed the ship all day, she thought first of how she missed Sousuke, and the mere thought simply… _expanded_. She'd thought about how life would be different now, the way it was before he came to school with an automatic weapon on his first day. She'd spent so many hours fuming to him that he'd messed everything up, even though he only meant well. But she'd never gone so far as to think of her life without him.

It was like there was no happy medium. He was either there and in her way, bothering the hell out of her, or he was dead.

But it didn't really feel like he was dead – maybe that was just the shock, but some little part of her simply refused to call him that. Maybe it would pass, but so far it hadn't budged an inch. It had been there for five months of uncertainty, so when Melissa had shown up on her doorstep and said that he'd been found among the dead on a sunken cargo ship, she was understandably more upset than she'd expected.

News spread quickly among mercenaries, because she saw a handful of faces at his service that surprised her. It was like the entire world had heard.

She'd actually been a little surprised that she hadn't seen _him _there – of course, he was dead, too. But he'd come back from stranger deaths yet, and life was weird enough with Sousuke's funeral – his funeral, because he was dead– and so it just would have made sense to see him. Actually, it would have proven to her that Sousuke was really gone, for Gauron to show up at his funeral and bid whatever farewell he might have chosen (whether it was a dance of joy or a shooting spree). When the most persistent, unkillable man in the universe showed up – well, it was a little bit like having Death himself lounging in the audience, admiring his work.

That was actually what Kaname was thinking about when she saw him, and for a silly moment, she thought, _Huh. Death is pushing a first aid cart around. Ironic._

Then, of course, reality clicked, and she jumped behind a fire extinguisher in case he chose to turn and look her way – as if the squeak of her shoes alone wouldn't give her away, but it was worth a try.

He kept on walking, though, and when she felt sure she was far enough behind him, she slipped back into the hall and began to follow him, stepping in time with him to mask her footsteps.

It didn't look like he had a specific destination; he wandered the floor aimlessly for nearly forty-five minutes. That was lucky enough, because an elevator might have gotten awkward. And Kaname was becoming a little giddy at the fact that he hadn't noticed her yet – a world-class assassin, and _she_ was the predator.

Until, of course, the people in the hallway thinned slowly, and she had to make sure to step exactly when he did, and remain just close enough that he wouldn't see her if he tossed a glance back. Then there was the problem of breathing, and her sandals were making a faint slap against the metal floor, and her skirt rustled noisily –

"If you think," came his voice in the chilled hallway, "that you'll be able to follow me by holding your breath and hopping along in time to my steps to disguise yours, then I've got some bad news for you: I inventedthat one."

She froze in place. "You did _not_."

Gauron turned and gave her a frosty smirk. "But you can't prove it, Miss Chidori. Can you?"

"If you come any closer," she said delicately, "I'll scream so loud, they'll think you've dismembered me."

"Don't underestimate me," he replied. "Because I just might."

_Okay,_ she decided. _Don't give him ideas. I was just thinking about him…_

"What are you doing here?"

Well. That was subtle.

"I thought you were going to scream," he reminded her.

"Only if you come any closer, and you haven't yet. Plus, that dismemberment thing. Why are you here?" she pressed stubbornly.

"I'm here to see a friend," he replied simply.

"You heard about Sousuke?" Kaname asked uneasily.

He sniffed. "I might have heard something."

Her own grief slipped to the back-burner for a moment. "His funeral was today," she said coldly. "If that's what you came for, you're a little late."

"He'll understand. I was always a little behind."

As far as Kaname knew, there were only two ways to cope with her grief: the smart way, and the not-so-smart way. Exuding frustration of any sort upon, not to mention taking it out on Gauron qualified as… well, not-so-smart.

Insane, even.

But her brain kept insisting, _Doesn't anyone care that he's dead? Doesn't anyone understand that it's not fair?_ So not only did she get rather short with him, she might have been mistaken for pissy. Her hands balled into fists at her side, and there was an impressive amount of venom in her voice. "He'll understand," she repeated. "I'm sure he will. You're probably beside yourself with joy, aren't you? You _jerk_. How dare you come back here and pretend to give a shit one way or another about him? You never caused him anything but misery, you never did anything other than try to kill him – you're like the flip side of his coin," she decided frigidly. "Heads and tails, yin and yang. He really is dead now, you know – it's not just an elaborate hoax to trick you into leaving him alone. And frankly," Kaname added, murder in her voice, "he didn't deserve to die like that. If someone was going to die that day, for whatever reason or cause, it should have been you." She swallowed and took another quick swipe at her eyes. "So why are you here? Why isn't it him standing there while people talk about _your _tragic end?"

Her chin threatened to tremble, but she bit down on it. "Why isn't it Sousuke?" she demanded, and then her precious composure began to crumble.

Possibly for the first time since they'd met, he regarded her with a degree of severity. "Touching. I'd cry, but it seems you've done it for me." At her appalled, kicked-puppy look of shock, he sighed. "Forget it. I'm not here to deal with your hormones."

Kaname's face flamed bright red. "Then why in the hell are you here?" There actually seemed to be no logical answer to that question – Sousuke was dead and beyond torment, a gun had not yet been pulled on her, nor was there any mention of her status as a Whispered… it wasn't quite adding up.

"I want to see his – I'm looking for the sniper," Gauron replied haughtily, his words faltering for only a millisecond. "The cocky one. Weber."

"Kurz?" she said stupidly. That definitely wasn't what she'd expected to hear.

"His friend," he clarified with disdain, a little too tightly. "You caught me on my way to have a little chat with him."

"You came to meet Kurz?" she repeated.

"More or less." He flashed her a cannibalistic grin. "Of course, I'm hoping he's as exited to see me as you were; it's always a treat to have the element of surprise."

"Can't you just leave us alone?" she said weakly.

"I could," he shrugged, "but you're going to want to hear what I have to say first. If you don't buy into it, then you'll probably never see me again."

"Promise?" Kaname almost sneered.

There was a chilling finality to his words. "I promise."

That proved to be little comfort to her.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I have always capitalized LAMDA because I assume it is an anagram

AN: I have always capitalized LAMDA because I assume it is an anagram. I could be wrong.

The cataclysmic meeting between Kurz and Gauron, which Kaname's misery-altered brain was almost looking forward to, was not quite as quick and explosive as it could have been. She was almost taken down a peg at that, too.

The big problem was that Kurz had never actually met the other man; combat was one thing, but there was a very impersonal quality to combat in an Arm Slave. So when he came sweeping into Kurz's quarters with Kaname at his heels, there was a moment where the myth and the man didn't completely reconcile.

It was no wonder; the shot in his dossier was a picture of a man who belonged in the world of business and marketing, clean-shaven and immaculate in a nice suit. It hardly looked like a mug shot. The man in the doorway now had a three-day stubble, longer hair that might now qualify as unkempt, and a frumpy grey windbreaker that made him look like – well, a janitor. So once Kurz realized that this wasn't a complimentary clean-up or anything of the sort – it might have been safe to say he hit the fan. But before that, there was confusion.

"Kaname?" he said slowly. "What are you – wait. Who are you?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "Um."

A hand was extended amiably. "Weber. Nice to meet you," Gauron said with decided cheer. "I admire your work."

Kurz's face was blank for another moment. "Um." Watching him place that unmistakable voice was like watching a computer download a big file, ten percent at a time. It started slow, but comprehension tightened his face noticeably. "Who are you?" he repeated.

"Oh, did it all mean so little? We've exchanged near-death experiences with each other, Sergeant," was the very smug reply. He did enjoy himself. "I had assumed you enjoyed it, too."

That was when the gun came out, and with an unusual lack of resistance, the gun was shoved in his face. "What the fuck are you doing here?" Kurz snarled.

"Just talking."

"My best friend is dead," he said coldly. "I don't know how he died, I don't know why it happened, but I plan on finding out. And if your name comes up anywhere – if I find out that you had _anything _to do with it – then I'll book your ass into hell, and I'll take my time doing it." He swallowed. "So talk fast. Understand?"

"He's not dead," he replied immediately.

The gun wavered. "You're lying."

"If you're under the impression that I only came to exchange pleasantries with you, then you sorely overestimate your general appeal," he informed the younger man viciously. "I don't actually think you can walk and chew gum at the same time, to be perfectly honest. But I think that if you were offered a chance to find Kashim alive, you might make considerable effort in that direction."

"Alive?" Kurz repeated stupidly.

"You heard me," he murmured. "Alive."

"That's not possible," he said flatly. "His body was positively identified when Mithril –"

"When Mithril dredged up the wreck of a North Korean steamer," Gauron finished. "They were looking for evidence that the kids up in Korea have begun to develop a more advanced nuclear shield that would tip the scales in their favor. If they have something that will protect the whole country from being blown off the face of the planet – well, wouldn't that make global domination look a little more feasible?"

At Kurz's slightly dazed look, Kaname stepped in for him and cleared her throat. "I don't follow."

"I'm sorry – I'll use smaller words. There's only one reason the North Koreans have been sitting on their nuclear hands rather than using them. They know that if they strike, someone is bound to strike back, and since the country could be completely annihilated with one big bomb, they really can't afford to do that. But someone happened across a fourteen-year-old boy in Pyongyang who was writing out the same strange physics equation on every flat surface he could doodle on. He underwent the _proper _tests to determine if he was a Whispered, like Miss Junior Class over here, but unlike her, he actually completed them. The things he was writing out were the mathematic blueprints to a shield – force field, if you will," he continued. "Powerful enough to withstand an attack from… well, maybe an Arm Slave equipped with a LAMDA driver. Or a really big bomb."

Kurz looked considerably unsettled, but withdrew his weapon almost two feet. "You're a lying sack of shit," he snapped. "You're a sick fucking sadist, and if I find out you're lying to me, _today_, I will hunt you down and kill you slowly."

Gauron had a grin that bespoke Trouble. "That's more like it. I could be wrong about you, kiddo – probably not, and I'll probably end up killing you eventually, too, but I can give credit where it's due. I like your attitude."

"Just keep talking." Kurz sounded a little strangled. Kaname had taken note of the drawn weapon and thought it best not to draw attention to herself.

"Thank you. My point is, no one on the damn planet needs those guys to find a way out of annihilation, even if destruction is mutually assured. I have several reasons why I can't afford for the North Koreans to have that kind of shit, and a few of them are financial. Mithril had its own self-serving reasons, don't worry," he added. "Whatever they were, they needed someone with no real civilian or military history about him that can be found. Lots of people in that country don't exist on paper, so he wasn't unique. His ability to remain faceless makes him an invaluable spy and double-agent. Of course they chose him. But he's not undercover anymore. He's locked up in one of their military hospitals in the jungle."

"And how do you know all this?" the younger man shot back. "You seem to have a lot of inside info on all this – enough that you might be involved somehow."

"Ah, the accusation resurfaces. Was I involved in the plot to take Kashim down… no. I've been as in the dark as you've been for the last few months. I was able to track him for about a month after he severed contact with Mithril, which I assume is more than can be said of you. But once he'd made his way into their nuclear program, even I knew I couldn't afford to keep tabs on him anymore," Gauron clarified. "The North Koreans allowed him into the program as some sort of expert – under what guise, I'm not sure, but they were so far up his ass constantly… they don't even trust their own operatives. I couldn't keep an eye on him from a distance, let alone get any closer without sending up red flags. So I backed off. I was tight on cash anyways, and there were jobs out there that actually paid, so I got one of those for awhile. Kashim is a big boy; he doesn't need me hovering all the time."

"You expect me to believe that?" Kurz scoffed. "You were covering him, instead of… I don't know, setting him up? Selling him out to the North Koreans?"

"The term I was looking for was glorified babysitting," he said mildly. "Kashim has one quality that the North Koreans haven't counted on. He just won't _die – _and trust me, I would know."

"So you think he's escaped the country?" the sniper suggested with healthy mistrust. "I'm not sure where your story is going."

"That's because I'm in the middle of it." When he was greeted with silence, he continued. "Thank you. I've done my homework this week, and here's what you need to know. No, I don't think he's escaped the country. I think his cover was blown and he's under lock and key, otherwise he would have reported back as soon as he was out. I might even know where he's being held – or let's just say I _do _know. Don't even bother looking, because I found him already. That won't make this any easier."

"This?" Kurz repeated blankly. "What exactly is 'this'?"

"This," he said cattily, "is getting him out of a detention facility. I don't have a whole lot of time, so forgive me if I'm brief: Kashim isn't dead. But if you don't make a lot of things happen in the next few days, he's going to be, and I'm going to hold you personally accountable for it."

Blue eyes narrowed. "You trying to intimidate me?"

He seemed to think about it. "Yeah, you could say that. You could also say that I'm threatening you."

Kurz's jaw tightened. "Right."

"And you could also say that it's in your best interest to be intimidated," he added.

They eyed each other warily for a moment. Kaname did her best impression of a doorframe she could manage. Finally, Gauron extended a folded piece of paper. "If you're up to it, that's the when and where. I'll see you if you show up."

Kaname jumped out of the way as he turned to slip out the door. "You're just leaving?" she choked, scrambling away from him.

He spared her a glance. "Damn right I am. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

She turned to Kurz. "Are you just going to let him leave?"

He shrugged. "Sousuke's dead. What can he do to me?"

_Me_. It wasn't a word she heard him use like that very often.

"Get out of here," he spat at the older man. "Just get the fuck out. Don't you get it? He's _dead_. You can't fuck with him. You can't torture him anymore." He holstered his gun and turned away sharply. "And the next time I see you, I'm going to kill you." He did not take the offered slip of paper.

Blatantly obnoxious, Gauron swept out of the room and stuffed it down Kaname's shirt. "Don't lose that."

Silence.

Then,

"THAT'S ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING, YOU NASTY PERVERT!"


	3. Chapter 3

"_Chidori?"_

_She looked around, but there was only blowing snow. The cold had squeezed every trace of warmth from her bones The ground was hard and frozen. It felt like she might never thaw out._

"_Sousuke?" she cried into the swirling white storm. _

_He was nowhere._

**030**

Kurz was nowhere to be found the next day. He hadn't left the sub, even after they came ashore in Honolulu and Kaname ran to the surface to suck in fresh air. When she returned, even Melissa hadn't seen him. No one had been by his quarters to check on him in several days in the first place, and no one was going to start the day after Sousuke's service.

She might have done the same, but today particularly there was a feeling in her stomach that she simply couldn't ignore. The slip of paper with coordinates and addresses was still clutched in her tiny fist, stuffed down in her pocket in case someone tried to take it from her. A cold lump sat in her stomach like a rock, and it hadn't been there the day before. If she was very still and quiet, she almost suspected the knot had a heartbeat of its own.

It was too much to hope for, and it was too dangerous for Kurz to take the terrorist at his word, and she _knew _that, but still her legs pushed her down the hallway, then another, down a flight of stairs, past checkpoints, all the way to where she knew Kurz was sitting in his room, staring.

She didn't knock; she burst in with a resolve that even she found untrustworthy. "You have to go," she blurted out without meaning to. "I mean – oh, Kurz, I'm sorry –"

His gaze turned to her, but she couldn't read his eyes. "Think there's a chance he's still alive?"

That made her pause, because saying yes probably made her crazy. But she bit her lip. "…Yes."

He didn't make a big deal about it; he just sighed and looked away. "I was afraid you were going to say that. I really was. But whether you mean to or not, I think you're the only person who really knows."

"What about _him_?" she asked plainly.

His face darkened. "I can't trust him even remotely."

"So what's your plan?"

"I don't have one."

**030**

The note was very specific on where to be and when, but North Korea was North Korea no matter how badly you needed to get around, and there was just no easy way to get from point A to point B. Gauron had not been specific at all on how he was supposed to reach the rendezvous, and it wasn't a cake walk.

So it annoyed Kurz greatly when he came walking up to the specific coordinates he'd received, so filthy that he almost couldn't be recognized, but exactly on time – and Gauron didn't even bother to ask him how he did it. He was just standing exactly where he said he'd be, his back to the wind and a cigarette flickering in the twilight. He nodded his head in the direction of a slight break in the forested landscape, and wordlessly they moved into the cover of sinking darkness.

After ten minutes of pushing through brush silently, he realized there was a path buried deep beneath the dense foliage. The elevation dropped slightly and so did the temperature, and they moved as quickly as possible for nearly an hour.

"Where are we going?" he asked after the speechless push into woods.

"Not much farther. You're carrying?"

"Yes."

"Distance shooter, right?"

"Yes."

"Then shut up and stop asking me questions."

"Here," Gauron announced finally, stopping in the middle of the unbroken forest.

"Here what?"

"Enough with the _questions._ Jesus. You see that roof?"

Kurz followed the finger that pointed before him, squinting between trees and spotting – "Oh. Yeah. Is that where you need me?"

"Just… aim at it. How accurate are you at this distance?" he probed.

"Better than you," was the short reply.

"You should really talk less. Don't follow me, don't try to contact me, don't get spotted, or Kashim is dead. Follow me so far?" the terrorist asked tartly. "Keep watch for anyone that isn't me. If you see _anyone _come or go from that front entrance –" here he gestured at the shack in the distance – "shoot them."

"Anyone but you?" he said darkly.

"Coming from there? Anyone, period. Shoot them."

"What about you?"

"Just wait for me. I don't usually come through the front door anyways." Then he grinned absently. "Of course, I'll let Kashim explain why." He shoved a small pouch at Kurz. "Be ready to use that. It's one dose of adrenaline, and he's going to need it. I won't be able to get anything but Kashim physically out of there."

"And your gun," Kurz grumped stupidly.

"Not even that, punk. Shut up and don't get killed."


	4. Chapter 4

Cold, after a some time, ceased to feel cold anymore. A painful, dull blanket made his bones feel as if they were made of lead. Straw and canvas separated him from the frozen earth, blocked him from drafts, and gave some hint of protection from other elements.

Sleep never really came, because a long time ago he suspected he'd begun dreaming and never stopped. Even eating cold food didn't seem to make him stop dreaming, even if he knew he was awake, and sleep perhaps occurred between meals. But never rest.

Mithril had offered him so many creature comforts that he'd lived without for most of his life, and now that they were gone, something felt… right. He had begun to feel like Kashim again, rather than pampered, rigid Sousuke. (Although that was probably from his dream-state.) A lot of the time, he seemed to see scenes of his entire life flicker on the gray wall before him like a mind-encompassing film reel, but even in his hallucinations, he could change nothing.

The entire time, a man's strong, cruel voice walked through with him, one step at a time. It called him by his old name and told him how weak and stupid he'd become within the smothering ranks of Mithril.

Very late in his dream, possibly hours ago, there had been a stirring in his mind that he hadn't felt for five weeks after he was thrown into isolation.

He felt awake.

He began to feel the cold again, and the ache in his bones. He could smell frozen waste and filth. A draft from a corroded pipe was blowing the dirt and straw into a tiny dust devil across the room.

He noticed himself blink.

Some kind of rigid, disciplined awareness stirred next. He didn't know how long it went on. His eyes began to re-examine the room he laid in with renewed curiosity, and maybe a sense of urgency. There was no telling why – he was only as good as his instinct made him, and so he began making sure every single muscle worked, no matter what shape it was in, and without question. It was what kept him alive in situations like these.

A sharp, blinding pain in his right elbow suggested a broken bone, or worse, a shattered one. He couldn't think about it yet. The pain of deep breathing was probably a broken rib or two. And he had a splitting migraine.

So much time in solitary had done nothing serious to him, he didn't think – not beyond a few badly mended bones, anyways. Solitude was such an awful punishment to inflict on the masses, but Sousuke had spent a lot of quality time in situations of radio silence or worse. He found, in all that time alone, that sometimes he quite liked himself in spite of his own insecurities. He had some discrepancy with his personal decisions, but he could not question the circumstances under which he made a good deal of those choices.

With detail, his mind crossed a great many topics that took up more time than he would have given them ordinarily, and by simple accident he allowed himself to sink back into them, away from the world of coherence and lucidity that he'd tasted only minutes before. It couldn't be helped – especially since he knew there was no guarantee that he wasn't just that much crazier, rather than that much saner.

But he also came awash in a mass of pictures he didn't recognize. They weren't memories. He could put no sense to them.

A light shone suddenly in Sousuke's eyes, and he knew instantly that it wasn't a figment of his imagination. It practically burned his corneas.

The air vibrated, and he honed in on the speech pattern. He'd heard nothing but iffy Mandarin, Cantonese, archaic Korean, and a handful of more localized dialects, so to hear delicately accented Japanese suddenly – in _that_ _voice – _he must have been dreaming.

His conscious mind had been shoved to a dark corner for a long time now, with no sound or warmth to bring him forward. When both were offered, the world around him began to come into tiny focus, as if he was looking out through a keyhole.

On the other side of the door was Gauron, which meant he was already dead.

**040**

Sousuke's face was pallid and lifeless. But he wasn't dead. Death had a way of pulling the flesh back and exposing the empty mouth, dulling the eyes and baring the teeth as skin dehydrated and shrank away. He would know.

But not so with the face beneath him. It was filthy, pasty white, unshaven in spots. His hair line was erratically cropped in places, covering what looked to be healing injuries to his skull. No – _incisions_. His brain seemed to stall at the concept. Gauron's eyes narrowed, and he ripped the filthy shirt wide open, exposing more wounds just like them across his chest as well, symmetrically dotting his skin.

They looked suspiciously familiar.

They looked like the marks Chidori would have had, if they'd held on to her just a little while longer.

"Shit," he hissed between his teeth. He hadn't been expecting that.

A thin, raspy breath shuddered within the lungs beneath him, then words. "They know," the young man whispered between cracked, bloodless lips.

"Kashim," he said irritably, "I'm pretty sure _you _don't even know."

Sousuke's thin frame shuddered, and he tried again. _"Don't use it."_

"Shut up for a minute," he snapped.

"Gauron-"

"I said shut up," the other man bit off again, digging through his bag. "Stay unconscious for another five minutes, would you? It would make this _so _much easier."

The words Sousuke tried to form next were unintelligible; Gauron ignored him for another minute before he couldn't take it anymore. He clamped a hand down over his mouth. _"Shut up,_" he snarled in a low voice. "If you'd like me to bring every poor bastard with a gun running down here so I can kill them, then by all means keep talking. But – look at me Kashim," and here he met Sousuke's gray eyes and held them until he saw a bit of comprehension in them, "we'll figure this out _when we get out of here,_ and after that I'm going to deposit you in Kalinin's lap so I can see the look on his face – but before I get to see that face, I have to get you out alive_._ So _be quiet_."

Sousuke held his gaze for another minute longer, then nodded once. His chest rattled with a sigh, and he went limp again.


	5. Chapter 5

OMG I LIVE!

We should credit "X-Men: First Class" for the fact that I'm writing again. RL, including but not limited to marriage, divorce, and losing my dad made writing lose its luster for years awhile. But it's completely impossible to watch First Class and _not _find your wheels spinning, and this was a happy side-effect.

That said, I realized in writing this that I sort of live within my own canon, where everything happens in a psuedo-"Roll of Thunder"-verse, so while this is in no way affiliated with ROT itself... I may pretend that some of the stand-alone stories apply. Mainly in referece to Kurz. Like, "Beer and Nuts."

(Can't wait to rework my own fiction good Lord.)

**050**

Kurtz noticed one significant thing about their maximum-security target as they crouched on a brushy hillside 1500 meters away: it was not, in fact, maximum security.

He fiddled with his scope and glared suspiciously at the man beside him. "I thought you said this place was a fortress," he muttered.

"No," was the delicate reply. "I said the R and D lab-slash-prison he was being held in was a fortress. This isn't a lab or a detention center; it's a glorified filing cabinet."

"And so why isn't this the lab?" Kurtz demanded.

"Oh, that. Someone started a nasty rumor about them trying to enrich uranium in that facility... naturally, China has their noses all up in _that_ nonsense," Gauron said vaguely, with all the innocence of Charles Manson. "This has been their fallback facility for decades."

"You..." Kurtz's mouth fell open. "You _planned_ that."

"And when would I have time to do that?" he asked, too distracted by some indecipherable contraption that he was constructing one piece at a time. "I've been too busy skull-fucking puppies, or haven't you heard?"

Kurz stared at him. "I. Um. Look, why the fuck are you _doing_ this? I literally can't figure this out."

"Well, then thank God I didn't bring you along for your brains," he replied absently.

"Goddamn it, I'm not joking!" Kurz exploded, the volume of his voice causing the terrorist/kidnapper/sociopath to lunge at him - "_shut up, you fucking -" _followed by a brief scuffle and Kurz repeating, "Jesus, okay, I get it!", reluctant in the knowledge that he could either cry uncle or probably get beaten to death, literally.

"My goddamn point is that I don't understand why you're even bothering," he hissed. "Do you just want to make sure you're the only one who can ever kill him? That no one else can hurt him?- because you have that in spades," he said viciously. "I just don't know what you're trying to achieve here..."

Frozen gray eyes pinned him to the spot. "You don't actully know anything, Blondie. I promise you, you don't even know Kashim."

"Then why did you contact me?" he demanded helplessly. "I - he's dead. I want him back - but if I'm only some tool that lets you keep torturing him -"

The other man's gaze was scornful. "You know you're not raising him from the dead, don't you? He's alive. Still. You're a complete and utter tool, yes, but you're a fair shot. Best I could get on short notice." He dug in his bag a little deeper, gesturing with one hand at the compound beyond them. "Your only job for the next five minutes is to shoot anything that moves, and isn't me. The truck is where it is because we'll have to get out of here fucking fast, and I can't afford the added time it would take to get Kashim much farther than that. I don't know what kind of shape he's going to be in, so I'm just going to assume the worst. So just... I don't know, do whatever it is you do." He settled the duffel bag on his shoulder and jammed a spike of some sort into the ground, twisted a knob, and studied it suspiciously.

Kurz glared through his scope and ground his teeth. "Don't mind me, then. I'll just start shooting people when they show up, how's that?"

Gauron reached into his bag one last time with a wild grin. "Good thing you're ready, then. Have fun."

And, with a quick flick of his wrist, he tossed a flare out in front of them, clapped him on the shoulder, and disappeared into the foliage gleefully.

About five seconds later, he had things to shoot at. He contemplated, fleetingly, shooting Gauron and solving all of his problems with one bullet, but the promise of Sousuke stayed his trigger finger -

He sighed and went back to the task at hand. When he thought about it later on, he'd be glad that security was light and their location isolated.

At the moment, however, he could only think that this was incredibly -_ unspeakably -_ stupid, and if he lived, he was never going to tell anyone about it.

**050**

A brush of something familiar touched Souske's mind, cold and impartial to him - but alive, in some funny way. His mind struggled to place it, but there were suddenly more important things going on. It had been... God, how long had it been?

It didn't even matter that it was Gauron at this point, because after who knew how long without Mithril able to find him, there were only a few other things worse than death.

He didn't really know where it ranked, though.

He watched the other man through heavy-lidded eyes, tracking the swift assembly of a device that he pulled out of his bag one piece at a time - flipping a switch here, balancing a circuit board on his knee as he wired it to another piece, using what looked like a sonic screwdriver to attach what could have been the tiniest toothpick in the world to some hunk of metal -

That touch in his mind again, that _strange suggestion _that he'd felt it before, that he'd connected to it the way he might have done with his Lamda driver -

Without thinking, he swiped at the contraption weakly. "You don't understand," he began, "that thing -"

"Kashim," the other man gritted, "I swear, when I want your opinion on technology, _I will ask you_. We'll be out of here in a minute, tops, so do you mind not getting us killed before then? Your blond Barbie friend can only run interference for so much longer -"

His reaction was swift and a little painful, his weakened muscles screaming as he pushed himself up. "Kurz is here?" he demanded breathlessly, his arms barely supporting his weight and the rest of him regretting the move instantly.

"I realize that I'm incredibly talented, Kashim," was the wry whisper, "but even I take _some_ pause before stealing a guinea pig from the North Koreans when they have home-court advantage. And if someone is making a racket outside, they won't think to worry about anything _inside_ for about... oh, say three more minutes, give or take two."

"What are you doing here?" he whispered brokenly, unable to think further than that.

The other man's temper snapped - quickly, almost undetectable in his hushed voice, but it echoed in the small room. "I am saving your _life, _you fucking moron, what part of that is such a foreign concept? Would it make you feel better if I told you that if you don't shut up, I'm going to kill you? Because I absolutely will at this point."

Maybe it was exhaustion, the isolation, desparation - any or all of them, he didn't know which one, but the weakest of laughs huffed past his lips. In some distant, buried part of him that was frostbitten with neglect, he did feel almost - _imperceptibly _- better. On a molecular level, and no greater.

Because if he was honest with himself, _really _honest about everything and not just what was relevant at the moment, he had been in a lot of really, _really _bad places in his life. But he'd always thought of a way out of them, whether it was his own resourcefulness he turned to, or simply an unwavering trust in his team. And up until precisely then, he had always been more or less successful, in that he had managed to get out of whatever predicament he had been in mostly unscathed.

It would be inaccurate to say that he had given up hope, lying prone in the floor, exhausted from a myriad of tests of which he couldn't even conceive and eating only what he thought wouldn't kill him. He _couldn't_ say that, because he had felt himself die more than once in his time as a man with no country, no family, no allegiance, and no fear of death. He'd allowed his mind to succumb to death many times, in situations far more painful than the one he was in now, and yet he had always emerged on the other side alive.

This, however, was new to him. Because at least _three _of the times he had conceded his life in utter defeat was to Gauron.

That being said, he also couldn't admit to comprehending the depths of the other man's motives. After struggling so passionately against each other for so many years, after commiting to a policy of _kill at all costs_, including their own lives... he was here. He had Kurz with him, or at least claimed to. Saving his life, he claimed.

If he'd had even the slightest bit of strength left in his body, he would have started banging his head against the ground. There was no point in asking the obvious questions, like "Why aren't you dead", or "Shouldn't you be strangling me now". He didn't let his own mind drift farther than that, even if it had nowhere else to go.

A click, and the cell was filled with a dim, eerie light. "_Perfect_," hissed a man whose definition of perfection was probably legitimately horrifying. It wasn't comforting.

And then awareness, or something mirroring it, hit him like a mack truck.

The contraption on the ground that hummed softly, that had consumed his companion's attention and seemed to be their ticket out, filled his brain completely, and he _understoood -_

"Turn that damned thing off!" he yelped, scrambing away from it as best his shattered body could. He barely registered Gauron telling him to shut the fuck up, again, but he couldn't.

He was pulling a small amount of C4 out of his bag now. "I don't think you get it, Kashim - we aren't just going to _walk _out of here. _That thing_ is how we get out alive." Now wiring the explosives to a remote receiver. "Trust me, I stole it from some very knowledgable people."

Sousuke struggled for words, but all he had were images - impressions, mostly, nothing concrete, but words were definitely not among them. Despair crept over him as a few switches were flipped - he couldn't place it, or define it, but an ill wind swept over him -

_probably just that corroded pipe_

And Gauron slung the duffel over his shoulder and grabbed him, his skin so hot that it scalded at the first touch, but he was pulled flush against him, and the glow in the room grew more intense -

"I might tell you to pray," Gauron added, as his words were swallowed by something invisible, "but this isn't the time for jokes."

The walls around them - the ground - the _air _dissolved. His stomach dropped as thought he'd jumped off a building, the stinging cold around him died, the grimy floor beneath him vanished.

And then, with an unceremonious crash, he felt grassy earth slam into him full-force. Fresh air filled his lungs, even if it was just as damn cold as the air in his cell had been, and _Kurz._

He was stammering, trying to say something more eloquent than "_Sousuke - ", _but he was mostly failing.

Gauron pulled him to his feet, _gently_, as if the day was not surreal enough, and gave Kurz a glare that promised death. "Take him," he said tightly, very obvioulsy reluctant. "Get him in the truck."

"There are still hostiles on the - " he began in protest, but was already moving to help his friend, maybe because he was alive, maybe to het him the _hell _away from-

"I've got that covered," was the reply, and a few more explosives were tossed onto the ground. The device, the strange, ominous piece of technology that had followed a signal -

_a beacon?_

The answer was yes, and the knowledge was overwhelming, and his head spun now not with technology, but with sounds and thoughts of _Three minutes should be enough time, the compound is going up in thirty seconds, they'll have fun with that -_

"Sergeant Weber," he said dimly. "I believe I'm about to pass out."

He was correct, almost down to the second.


	6. Chapter 6

Hmmm… the plot thickens!

Short update, but one nonetheless.

Sousuke slept intermittently for exactly six hours, two of them in a truck, the other four in a hospital just beyond the Chinese border. It was an undocumented freebie with no strings attached that Gauron had been saving for a rainy day since the nineties, and this seemed as good a time to call it in as any.

The half-healed scars that marred Souske's chest were small, innocuous things. Only a few of them showed above his hospital garb, some on his neck - uglier ones buried beneath a fuzz of regrown hair, dotting his scalp.

It was enough to bring out his rather more antisocial tendencies, where he might just go on a weekend lark and literally peel someone's skin from their body at his leisure.

Why the fuck had they felt the urge to run those tests on _him, _for Christ's sake? They were expensive, they took a long time to get results - Kashim, of all people, was definitely _not_ a Whispered -

He had so, _so _many people he was going to visit after they were out of the woods. If he had been the souvenier-taking type...

Sousuke tossed in the bed, a strangled noise of distress catching in his throat. it was everything he could do not to reach out, hold -_ touch_, at the very least -

"Shut up," Sousuke groaned into the pillow, wrapping it around his head tightly. "Shut _up,_ you don't have to say _everything _that crosses your mind, would you _let me sleep," _and when not even a sassy reply jumped to the forefront of Gauron's mind, Sousuke grumbled, "_Thank _you."

He crossed his arms in his chair and didn't sleep; he watched the nurses come and go every hour or so, check the charts, scribble on them every so often, fiddle with the saline bag. He masked his sharp attention with a newspaper, and yet everyone who came in the room stepped wide around him and did their business as quickly as possible. Either word travelled fast in this joint, or he still had it.

The barbie doll poked his head in after awhile; although he thought he was being sneaky, it was fairly obvious that he was checking in with Mithril with the unlikely news that their wayward soldier was alive.

"We have people on the way now," Weber said coldly. "There's a team stationed deep inland that will get Sousuke and I to the De Daanan tonight."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course there is. I can't emphasize how little I care, can I?"

"They'll be here in four hours," was the short reply.

Sousuke snuffled in his sleep; he'd been tossing a bit as the first round of sedatives began to wear off, and if Mithril was so nearby, they'd probably want to take over as early as possible in his treatment. He'd have to have private word with Wesley, his personal contact within the facility.

"You're worried about him," Kurz realized reluctantly, pausing in the doorway.

It was only one of many things that made him want to kill the sniper, but it was a big one: for precisely the _entirety_ of this little jaunt into hostile territory, he'd fielded the subtle and not-so-subtle prods about Kashim, and not customary suggestions about letting him live, oh no. Not the normal stuff. No, this kid seemed bent on Kashim's _emotional___well-being - so much so that he was beginning to question Kasim's usually unquestionable discretion.

And, well. He didn't know precisely what the sniper could testify to in a court of law, but he hadn't really been _that_ big of -

Fitfully, and from beneath two pillows and part of a blanket, Kashim found it in him to argue.

"You," he declared, muffled by stolen linens, "were _horrid _and undeserving of my ignorant and naive affections, neglectful under the most generous of circumstances, and you let me think that _you were dead_ until it was convenient for you, which happened to coincide with your execution of mass kidnapping, international terrorism, and violation of the -"

"Kashim," he put in calmly, "you're starting to freak people out."

A hazy, one-eyed glare found him from beneath part of a pillow. "I cannot find it within myself to care."

"You know I stole that extra pillow from someone who was actually dying," he retorted. "You could just say thank you." He did not let the unease that was creeping over him show; he had a fair poker face, and it saved his life every so often.

He studied his companion silently for a long moment, contemplating his next words. And just to be a shit, he thought about him naked in the meantime.

Sousuke lurched forward in the bed, his eyes wild and face flushed. "Don't you _dare -_"

Gauron was on him in a flash, gesturing at Kurz as he did so. "Weber!" he snapped. "A hand, would you?"

The other man was at his side immediately, pushing Kashim down onto the bed again more gently than he himself knew how to be. "Bro," he said softly, his words light but loaded. "Sousuke. It's cool, you're okay. You know that, right?"

Sousuke made a small noise of dissent, the heel of a hand digging into his temple desperately. "I just want - _quiet, _it's so loud, I - I can't -"

The knot in his stomach tightened. He thought about -

No. That was insane. There was no way...

He looked at Kashim for a long moment, his thoughts deliberately muted as he contemplated what came next.

_Would you like me to shut up? _, he thought clearly.

"God," Sousuke groaned, almost involuntarily. "If you would, please."

He turned to the sniper quickly. "Remembet the doctor who let us in?" he asked swiftly. "Wesley?"

"Yeah," said Kurz warily.

"Get him now," he snapped.

Weber hesitated. "I -"

"_Now, _goddammit!"

And he looked at Kashim long and hard, the humor gone from him in a swift burst. He looked at the prone, broken body before him, and he thought about the man who had stood against him so many times before, without a bow in his posture. He looked at the multitude of scars that had long since healed. He thought about how so many of those scars might as well have had his name on them, burned into skin like a brand. He thought of how many layers of skin, and humanity, he had peeled from the other man personally. How he had delighted in each victory, how he loved knowing that_ next time _was not so far off, that it would be weeks and not years before he saw him again -

And now Kashim could not be stilled; he writhed against his captors, his breath catching in his throat as he tried to cover his ears. "Stop, _stop it, _I don't want - I don't care, I -" 

He shot a mildly homicidal look at Weber. "Go," he ordered tightly, "before _you _need a doctor."

Weber didn't need a second invitation.


	7. Chapter 7

I swear, when I started this story I was like, "Oh, that should only take three chapters. I'll be done in a month.

HA.

**070**

Kaname paced and fretted.

Tessa paced and sniffled, her chin wibbling intermittently. Her hands trembled around a cup of tea, and she spooned sugar almost blindly into the cup without even bothering to stir.

Melissa paced and drank and smoked and swore.

And she yelled.

"YOU SENT HIM OFF WITH THAT _FUCKING LUNATIC_?"

That was the best of it.

"What in the name of _Jesus motherfucking Christ is wrong with both of you!"_ she exploded, a cleverly concealed can of beer slamming down onto the table in lightly-carbonated protest. "Captain, no disrespect, but are you fucking insane? That psychopath took you hostage _at gunpoint_, made his best attempt to blow up a military submarine full of military specialists and military secrets and unarmed _civilians_ - let's not forget taking an entire student body hostage - and please God, don't start me on what he's done to Sagara _alone_, even if Sagara wasn't my friend, I'd shoot the fuck out of that fuckface and rip his internal organs out through his -"

"Major!" Tessa yelped, probably just in time. "We appreciate the gravity of the situation -"

Mao's fist clenched around the can. "Really, do you?" she gritted. "That's my team, Captain. _My _team_._ Sagara. Weber. I approved Sagara's name for that mission. I practically sent him undercover myself. Any intel gathered indicating that he was alive should have come directly to me. The team assembled to cross into hostile territory for a covert snatch-and-grab should have been hand-pickedby me. The risk of saving one of my men should have been mine alone. Under no circumstances should fucking Weber have trotted his dumb ass off into the middle of goddamn nowhere with _a terrorist fucking serial killer _for any reason -"

"I never ordered Sergeant Weber to go with him!" Tessa cut in with a futile cry. "Never! I could never have - not even if I was certain he was reall alive, there's no -"

Kaname's guilt coughed delicately.

The other two women turned to her. "Miss Chidori?" Tessa prompted, clearly relieved that Melissa's wrath stood to shift away from her. "You're being incredibly quiet over there."

Melissa's stormy eyes narrowed. "Actually, yes. You are."

"Well," she started lightly.

They waited.

"Well what?" Mao snapped after another few moments of quiet.

"The thing is," she started again. "I mean, it's kind of funny, really. This, um, you know. The other day. When Kurz left."

"When Kurz left, in secret, without telling anyone, or even speaking to anyone after Sagara's service," Melissa prompted. "Yeah, then. What about it?"

"Kurz may have talked to - well - I mean, I saw - _he _was here," she admitted, chomping down on her thumbnail nervously.

Melissa leaned forward, looming a little bit. "Who was here?"

_"You _know who."

That earned her a pregnant silence.

"He was on _my ship_?" Tessa shrieked. "How could he - no one even - I - _how could you not tell_ _ me this earlier?"_

"And what the fuck could he possibly have wanted, do you think?" Melissa asked coldly, her voice alarmingly calm but rising measuredly. "To pay his respects? Leave flowers? Or could it have been the most likely option, which was confirmation that Sousuke was stone dead? He's a big-picture sociopath, Kaname, not some honorable holdover from the old days, paying his last respects to his fallen foe. If he was here, he's most likely in the middle of something. If it involves us, it's really about you. And if it's really about you, then I bet money he's creating some kind of decoy to isolate you now that his biggest obstacle is dead. And with Kurz out of the picture -"

Kaname's hand came down on the table, hard enough to hurt; vehement enough to startle her. "_He was telling the truth!_" It came out almost as a scream, anything to drown out Melissa's anger, and crushingly reasonable logic. But it came out in a stream suddenly, down to little things that she'd pondered in passing, fragments of a dream from the night before, and generally nothing to prove that she was right - but dammit, she was a _Whispered_. Even if she had no proof, _she knew._

"He was right," she confessed breathlessly, "I don't know how he knew, but he did. _I _knew. I knew it was wrong the whole time, but I didn't want everyone to think I was crazy, but I - I _felt _him. Sousuke. I thought at first it was just me being hopeful, or delusional -" She swallowed and looked at Tessa for a long moment. "But we don't get to do that, do we, Captain?" she said boldly. "You can tell when it's real, can't you?"

Tessa looked uneasy under her gaze. "Well I - Miss Chidori, I can't necessarily agree with you there. I can't simply be hopeful and chalk it up to my extra-sensory tendencies, certainly you understand -"

"I knew he was alive," she said flatly, some of her confidence returned to her. "I've, um - I've tried to contact him. But I can't... he's not responding. He's pulling back from me. Originally he reached out to _me,_ and I could feel him -"

"Kaname!" Tessa yelped. "That is _so incredibly dangerous -" _

"I was careful!" she assured her. "He was there, I've only ever been able to kind of sense him abstractly, and literally _never _before this - I guess because he was looking for me. But now it's like I'm being shut out. So I'm not even getting close enough to worry about not getting back out."

Mao cleared her throat. "You've both lost me. But since I don't really give a shit, please don't bother filling me in."

"The point is, he's _alive_," Kaname insisted. "Kurz is with him, and he's bringing him back."

Mao's frown deepened. "Yes. But in what kind of shape, is the next question. You didn't hear his voice when I talked to him. I don't have all your Whispery shit, all I have is my gut, and it's telling me that he's hiding something, and if Kurz is worried enough that he's not blabbing everything that crosses his mind, then it is something _bad_. Otherwise he'd be wallowing in his laurels or whatever, playing up the hero card until we killed him."

Tessa's eyes lowered. "I don't have that particular... the... your _proclivity_, Miss Chidori. My own capabilities go in other directions. And every time you attempt to do that… you know the risk involved."

That was an understatement, and she _knew _all that stuff already, but still. She was always subconsciously keeping some kind of an eye on him, even in a crowd with no direct line of sight - although that was mostly just so she'd know which was to run when someone inevitably found out he was heavily armed at all times and she had to come to his rescue because he was an _idiot_.

She closed her eyes and thought about the meticulous order he kept his mind in; the dusty crevices where he filed away information that he found mostly useless but held onto just in case - such as proper attire for the junior class dance and the common courtesy of a _corsage_, for pete's sake -

The small ripples he left in his wake as he moved and thought, as opposed to the splashes of other people -

She fanned out a little, trying to create her own ripples just in case he was paying attention. It was yet another one of those things she had never done, or even thought about, but it came quite naturally to her. And she had exactly no basis from which to assume that he _would _be there, except that he had been before, and perhaps might be again, and if he was, _she would find him_.

A shadow flickered across her mind, quiet and familiar - distant, but receptive.

_Sousuke_?

Her awareness of him blossomed, but stayed hazy and uncertain. His mind buzzed with a million different emotions – fear. Sousuke was _never _afraid -

"Miss Chidori!" Tessa burst in, her eyes wide. "What are you _doing?_ You can't just -"

And then _he _swept in, razor-sharp and unmistakable, swirling around and behind Sousuke like they were braided together.

Then nothing.

The connection went quiet, the soft patterns of Sousuke gone, but the third party remained for a moment, blocking her.

_Back off _cracked like thunder in her head, and she reeled physically as well as psychologically, her chair tipping over backwards and taking her with it.

And then nothing. Just silence and emptiness.

Tessa looked as shell-shocked as she felt. "What in the world - "

"_Who _in the world," she corrected. "And the answer is bad. Like, seriously, really bad." She swallowed and tried to find the words to explain the feeling. The permeating feeling of _not alone_, the way Sousuke nearly radiated it.

"How bad?" demanded Melissa.

For a lack of words, Kaname grabbed the cream from the table and dumped every inch of it in Tessa's tea.

Tessa's face dawned with understanding. "_Oh my God_."


	8. Chapter 8

I still maintain that yes, I firmly ascribe to the "pre-existing relationship" ship. I can't help it. Everything I write these two in has the implied suggestion of "Oh, whoa. They totally did."

I probably shouldn't be having this much freaking fun writing this. That being said, I am having a _ball_!

080

Sousuke calmed down exactly enough to stop shouting.

That didn't keep him from a well-deserved "If you touch me again, I will _cut your arm off - !_"

Because that touch had been _horrible_.

One minute he had been swimming in the last vestiges of a dream - Gauron had been in it, so it was immediately filed away as a nightmare - but then he was _touching him_ and the edges of his vision lit on fire -

Kurz fled the room obediently, in search of someone who was obviously relevant who Sousuke did not give two shits about, and he was left alone with the fire and the burning and -

"Get your hands off of me," he hissed, his treacherous body refusing to make it happen on its own.

And the worst part of it, the deepest, harshest twist of the knife, was that he saw the exact same panic on Gauron's face for the briefest second.

It was gone in the next.

The oppresive silence of the room almost swallowed them both, but they were not precisely equipped to sit in soft, glowy quiet. Every silence that had threatened them before had been thoroughly destroyed, more often in gunfire, less often in things he wanted to think little and less on.

_A long time ago, that was a long time ago, another mission another life another person Kashim not Sousuke_

"So long you don't even enjoy it anymore?" Gauron said wryly.

_Oh my God_, he thought. "I hate you," out loud.

"I heard both of those. I only appreciate one."

He gritted his teeth and said nothing.

"Stop posing a a high school student," was the next thing he heard.

"Stop taking them hostage," he shot back.

"It's creepy." He let the word drawl lecherously.

"You make it so. Perhaps if you started stalking post-grads, you would feel better about yourself." It came out exactly as dickish as he intended.

Now that his brain was clear, though, he swallowed and went to the heart of the matter. "What did you do to me?"

"I saved your idiot life," was the pissy reply. The problem of that reply was what came with it: _what was I supposed to do, thought you died, I told all of them they were wrong, fuck off - found you - what was I supposed to do -_

He balled the pillow up around his head, to no avail. "Please," his voice came muffled through the stuffing, "stop thinking. I already have one headache that is most likely your fault."

"If you only have one problem that you can blame on me," he snapped back, "then I'm clearly failing."

It would have been too galling for Sousuke's delicate sensibilities to admit how many issues he was having at the moment, and how few people he could blame for it. So he buried it.

His teeth clenched so hard that he thought they might shatter in his skull. "Then get out of my head."

"Get out of mine," he replied, fury looming from a deadly coil.

"What in God's name did you -" his palm pressed angrily to his forehead, like that would help him any. _What did you do to me_, went unspoken, a broken mantra in his head.

A hand clamped down on his own, and then it was _fire_

_Want you_

_Died, thought you were gone_

_Would have burned the world_

_Everyone_

_I would have killed them all_

_For you, all for your stupid_

_Followed you, I would have followed you the next second_

It was reeling, spinning, like he'd been pitched off of a building. Air didn't feel like it filled his lungs anymore, the room tilted badly - wrong, this was wrong, he wasn't young and stupid anymore, he should have been letting go, pulling away, pulling a gun, for God's sake -

"Stop," he gasped, and did everything he should have done immediately, minus the gun, because his had been lost who knew how long ago but it seemed like a very good idea to get another one, now.

He sucked in a lungful of air and pulled a shaking hand down his face. "Don't do that again," he said after a long minute.

His companion's face was grim, but his shrug was flip. "Just checking the water. "

"I don't suppose you know how you managed to pull off such an impressive train wreck," Sousuke gritted, trying to suppress everything that had been deposited on the doorstep of his brain.

"I could guess," he admitted, his grin nothing shy of wicked. "But I'm no expert. i have a buddy here who could probably help."

Sousuke couldn't let go of the massive obvious behind the "no expert" statement, but he kept silent. It still earned him an eye-roll. "And how could he possibly be of assistance?" Also, anyone Gauron considered himself on friendly terms with was probably one step shy of being hell on earth, or at least incredibly good at killing people.

"I might have borrowed one of his toys to get us out of there," was the vague reply. "I didn't get all the way through the instruction manual."

"I noticed that," was the posh retort from the doorway, Kurz's search for the good doctor clearly triumphant. "You could have asked me how to use it, for starters."

"Marcus," he greeted dryly. "Kashim, Marcus. And... blondie. All acquainted now?"

Marcus (Wesley was the last name on his key card) was deceptively young, a white lab coat tucked nicely over the most boring cardigan known to mankind, his hair parted smartly, if a little on the long side. It had a boyish flip at the ends that made him look even more obsessively like the strangest, youngest, most nondescript doctor on the planet. He could have passed for a pediatrician.

This time, the eye-roll he received couldn't have been mistaken for anything but annoyed. "Get over it, Kashim, he thought the Hippocratic oath was hilarious."

"I didn't miss the irony," the doctor corrected him. "I wouldn't say I found it amusing. But enough about me. You seem to be recovering nicely, Sergeant. And by nicely," he added, "I mean at an alarming pace completely outside the realm of what modern medicine can do."

Sousuke blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"No," Marcus smiled, "you're not yet. I expect this is a favorable side-effect of your little bonding experience - the less favorable ones, I'm sure you've noticed already."

"It's hard to miss," Gauron muttered, slouching like a sulking child. "Now get rid of it."

"All in good time. Let me guess what you did: you used my little project to get both of you from one fixed location in space to another, probably because you have a penchant for being shot at," Wesley smiled, taking a seat at the foot of the bed - perching, more like. "Would you like me to explain why that was an incredibly stupid idea, or would you like to guess?"

"Just explain it," Sousuke snapped before Gauron could be further encouraged into creativity.

The good doctor settled in his perch. "I suppose I'll be talking to you both like children, then. That device was intended for single-person use, in instances of breaking and entering... perhaps on a larger scale," he allowed. "And it was only in the first stages of testing. And - I must emphasize - designed for one person. Ideally for a person uniquely able to operate a Lamda driver, even, based on their proclivity to merging the conscious mind with certain kinds of technology."

Sousuke's stomach began to sink. He dared a glance at the man beside him, but his face revealed nothing.

_You can look, if you want,_ was the dark ripple in his mind. It wasn't happy, or conciliatory, or even remotely welcoming. It simply _was_.

_If you absolutely goddamn must know _everything _at all times_, came immediately behind it, with a twist of familiar venom.

His fists clenched reflexively before he forced himself to exhale and relax, or at least fake it. "I would rather refrain from that," he muttered. "I have no desire to be comfortable in your head."

Kurz twitched. "Was he- I mean, are you guys -"

"I expect their non-verbal communication is getting quite good now," Marcus assured him.

"Stop," Gauron snapped, "trying to sell your goddamn product. I already stole it. I know what it's supposed to do. Get to the fucking point." Although no one could see it, Sousuke knew his hand was contemplating a boot knife and where exactly he was going to cut the other man's throat.

He swallowed, because he could even feel the muscles that would be involved with moving before anyone could even process what happened.

No one would even see him move - Sousuke didn't need any extra-sensory assistance to know that for certain. His own hand twitched like it would go for the same knife.

_You're going to have to get used to that_, a new addition to his mind informed him. _But I might want to kill him less if he'd get off the fucking bed_.

Marcus turned those deceptively gentle eyes to Sousuke, like he was sorry or even remotely sympathetic. "You shoved yourselves into an undefined point in space. Alone, your minds would simply have fastened to the other end of the device, your exit route. But there was something more natural than technology in that space, that drew you in before you could be drawn out again, and you latched on to that instead." He spread his hands apologetically. "And here you are."


End file.
